Monsters in the Dark by Dr Matt Bothwell

Tonight’s talk will be given by Dr Matt Bothwell. Matt is our new Honorary President so this is a great opportunity to ‘meet’ him – well, as much as Zoom allows!

Giant elliptical galaxies are by far the biggest and rarest galaxies in the modern Universe. But how do they form? When astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to examine the formation of galaxies, peering back billions of years, there didn’t seem to be anything big enough to produce an elliptical giant. So where did they come from? Matt will talk about the journey of discovery that led to the discovery of a whole new species of galaxy: the monsters in the dark. Matt has a book coming out in November which will include much of the content of his talk, see this link.

There will be an update on society news, a tea break, and a Q&A/chat session. If time allows there will be an astronomy news update from Gordon Ewen.